If you're like me and are one of the three billion guys out there, then you would know how it feels like to shop with a female (sorry ladies, we really don't like being a manaquin for your handbags). But what if there was a way for your other half to do their shopping at home? What if all she needed was a computer, a mouse and your credit card?
Enter:
Enter:
E-COMMERCE!
Just like how the picture describes it, e-commerce is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She can do her shopping right in the comforts of your lap with easy access to the atm (i.e you). This, my poor man, is called B2C or Business to Consumer and is but one of the many ways businesses are trying to reach their customers along with Business to Business (B2B) and Consumer to Consumer (C2C).
But what is e-commerce exactly?
E-commerce is not just about how much stuff you can buy. It is about the experience. About recreating the entire shopping experience right at home. We all know the Alibaba's and the Amazon's, titans of e-commerce. But what is more important is that the website must be clean not cluttered, easy on the eyes and most important of all, user-friendly.
Now that we understand the basics of e-commerce, lets look at some of the most successful e-commerce websites:
1) Fallen Hero
This website is clean, responsive and user-friendly with a very easy to use checkout page. How many times have we been stumped because we couldn't find our ebay account? If you want to increase your sales, learn from them. They have already had an increase of about 143% just from shoppers who use their tablets.
2) ASOS.com
Who hasn't heard of ASOS.com? Look at their website and interface. Their ethos from e-commerce speaks for themselves. According to Paul Rouke from PRWD (a leading internet marketing company), he said that
Across devices, in fashion retailing ASOS continues to deliver an exceptional experience in many areas - service proposition, site speed, genuinely valuable shopping features, integration across devices, and just lots of lots of ecommerce best practice.
Who needs to reinvent the wheel when you have a clear focus on delivering what visitors expect and desire?
Mr. Rouke, we agree. Nuff said.
ANDDDDDDDDD Now, for some of the worst around the web
1) Ling's Cars
This website looks like it was the offspring of someone high on LSD and Weed. Do i really want to lease my car from someone who has a flight attendent in my FAQs? I WANT A CAR NOT A PLANE. And look at the design. It looks like it was made from a bunch of random stuff put together, like one of those spam websites that does nothing.
No Ling, NO NO NO.
2) Arngren.net
Regardless of the sites language, I have no idea WTF IS GOING ON. Its confusing, its cluttered and after using the site you're still going to wonder what they are actually trying to sell. Am I here to buy a space shuttle? Or a baby dinosaur? This site looks like the yellow pages went digital or one of my grandmother's catalogues.
3) Mercia Tourist Board
The Mercia Tourist Board is an example of G2C or Government to Consumer e-commerce. It is there to attract you to come and visit Mercia but really, who wants to visit a place where everyone has had plastic surgery. No offence Barbara Streisand but even that much plastic can't save you from looking any younger.
So...what is e-commerce?
To me, it is something that replicates the entire shopping experience from home. It is not about how cute your website looks but rather, how adept are you at keeping my attention. I want information and to buy your stuff but as some of these examples show, there is still no one recipe for success. Who knows, maybe in ten years we would prefer our e-commerce sites to look like Arngren.net but until then.....ASOS.com,
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